Unit 4: 1800-1848 PDF
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This document discusses the Industrial Revolution and its consequences in the United States during the period 1800-1848. It covers topics such as the American System of Manufacturing, the Market Revolution, and Supreme Court rulings on interstate commerce. It also mentions the growth of the cotton textile industry and the social changes brought about by industrialization, including the rise of a new class of factory owners and the evolving sexual division of labor.
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Unit 4: 1800-1848 he Industrial Revolution and Its Consequences T - The Industrial Revolution shifted production away from hand-crafted artisanal pieces and towards mass-produced, machine-made goods in Europe and America. Interchangeable parts were produced by machines and assembled se...
Unit 4: 1800-1848 he Industrial Revolution and Its Consequences T - The Industrial Revolution shifted production away from hand-crafted artisanal pieces and towards mass-produced, machine-made goods in Europe and America. Interchangeable parts were produced by machines and assembled separately to produce in great quantities industrial goods. Unskilled laborers using water power would assemble these parts separately into manufactured products like muskets, farming equipment, and household utensils. This system of production became known as the American System of Manufacturing. - The Market Revolution, specific to the United States, was the linking of northern industries with western and southern farms, created by advances in agriculture, industry, communication, and transportation. - The canal, steamboat, railroad, and telegraph opened new land to settlement, made it far easier for economic enterprises to sell their products, and linked farmers to national and world markets. By 1860, there were more than 30,000 miles of railroad tracks in the United States, concentrated mostly in the North. The Erie Canal, completed in 1825, connected the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean and made New York City the nation’s largest port. Robert Fulton’s steamboat allowed trading vessels to navigate both down and upstream. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin, James Hargreaves’s spinning jenny, and Richard Arkwright’s water frame helped the growth of the cotton textile industry. - In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), the Supreme Court struck down a monopoly the state of New York had granted to one steamboat corporation, ruling that in cases where state and federal laws on interstate commerce conflict, federal laws are superior. - Northern manufacturing cities exploded in population, with immigrants mainly being German and Scotch-Irish. These immigrants supplied the cheap labor that factories required, developing a growing class of laboring poor. 14 - A new class of factory owners and industrial capitalists arose, which strengthened the wealth and size of the middle class, which had previously been made up mainly of merchants and professional people. The demands of modern industry regularly brought the interests of the middle-class industrialists into conflict with those of the people who worked for them: the working class. - During this time, the sexual division of labor began to evolve. The Cult of Domesticity was the idea that a woman’s identity and sense of purpose revolved around childbearing and making her home a haven of rest for her husband. Separate spheres of work developed; husbands were seen s “wage-earners” and wives as “homemakers.” a Slavery - The Cotton Kingdom of the South and the manufacturing behemoth of the North were interdependent on slavery. Northern manufacturers participated in the slave economy and shared in its profits, developing the raw cotton from the South into marketable textiles. - The Second Middle Passage (1820-1860) transferred slaves between the Upper and Lower South after the international slave trade was abolished in 1808. - Fewer and fewer slaveowners believed that slavery was a necessary evil. Instead, according to proslavery advocate John C. Calhoun in his speech to the Senate, slavery was a “positive good.” Proslavery rhetoric rested on white supremacy, biblical sanction of slavery, and the historical precedent in that slavery was essential to human progress. Slavery for blacks protected whites from menial labor and “wage slavery,” like with the factory jobs in the North. - Some slaveowners adopted paternalism, which claimed that slaves were deprived of liberty for their own good, to justify slavery. This outlook enabled slaveowners to think of themselves as kind masters, even though they bought and sold humans as property. The Second Great Awakening - The Second Great Awakening was a series of religious revivals among lower class Protestants that emphasized righteous living, personal restraint, and a strong moral rectitude that would lead individuals and society to salvation. Charles Finney was the leading Evangelical minister. - Much like the Great Awakening was a reaction to the Enlightenment, the Second Great Awakening was a reaction to the Industrial Revolution. Just as the Industrial Revolution emphasized that economic success was in the hands of the individual, the Second Great Awakening emphasized that salvation was in sinners’ hands. In both, hard work and investments were the key to success. - The Second Great Awakening was spurred by the rise of democratic and individualistic beliefs. New religious meetings were often attended by whites and blacks, free and enslaved, and men and women alike. It was also influenced by a rejection of rationalism in favor of Romanticism, the appreciation of spiritualism and the natural world over realism and Enlightenment philosophies. - The revival spread rapidly throughout America thanks to the emotional speeches of Methodist and Baptist preachers. 15 upreme Court Cases S - Chief Justice John Marshall ascended to the Supreme Court in 1801. Indubitably the most important figure in the history of the Supreme Court, Marshall made numerous key decisions that haped the course of America’s future. s - In Marbury v. Madison (1803), Marshall declared that the Judiciary Act, which created 16 new spots for federal judges, was unconstitutional. By doing this, Marshall gave the Supreme Court the power of judicial review, or, the power to uphold or invalidate federal laws it deems unconstitutional. This power was extended to state laws in Fletcher v. Peck (1810) and later even to executive actions. - In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the state of Maryland attempted to tax the Second Bank of the United States. The Supreme Court found this outside of states’ rights, deciding that federal law trumps state law. Jefferson and Liberty - Thomas Jefferson tied with Aaron Burr, a fellow Democratic Republican, in the election of 1800. Jefferson assumed the presidency only after Alexander Hamilton personally endorsed him over Burr. This crisis caused Congress to adopt the 12th Amendment, requiring electors to cast separate ballots for president and vice president. - Jefferson wanted to make the government smaller, lower taxes, and shrink the military. He wanted an America that was predominantly agrarian, with most people being small-scale self-reliant Yeoman farmers, as opposed to the English industrial model. His vision aligned with small-scale local governments, believing that the masses could essentially govern themselves. He at first succeeded, however his later policies enlarged federal power more than ever before. - Jefferson believed that “civilized” Native American tribes could be assimilated into the American population. - 1800 also saw one of America’s first large-scale slave uprisings: Gabriel’s Rebellion. Enslaved Virginia blacksmith Gabriel and his co-conspirators intended to have a display of violent protest at the capital until their demands for abolition were met. However, the plot was discovered before it came into fruition and Gabriel, along with 25 other slaves, was hanged. - In response, Virginia made its laws concerning slaves much harsher. Slaves could not meet in groups unless supervised by whites and it became much more difficult for slaveholders to legally free their slaves. apoleonic Influence N - Jefferson doubled the size of the United States in a deal with Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of the French, called the Louisiana Purchase, in 1803. Napoleon was eager to sell the territory, mainly to fund his ongoing European campaign, but also because the Haitian Revolution turned France off to colonies. - The same Jeffersonians who supported the French Revolution were repulsed by the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804), underscoring how race and slavery defined American hypocrisy. In the the French colony of Saint-Domingue, black revolutionary Toussaint L’Ouverture led a successful slave uprising and established Haiti as an independent 16 nation. The revolution inspired hopes for freedom among American slaves, but reinforced white Americans’ fear of slave uprising. - Jefferson, a strict constructionist, was conflicted with his deal, as the ability to purchase land is never mentioned in the Constitution as a right of the president. Nonetheless, the increased size of the country fulfilled Jefferson’s vision for agrarian America; with more land, every white man could own a small farm and become truly independent, virtuous, and free. He sent Lewis and Clark on an expedition to survey the newly acquired territory. - Jefferson’s Embargo Act of 1807 was meant to punish Britain for its act of impressing American sailors, as well as its blockade of France during the Napoleonic wars, by forbidding all American ships from sailing to foreign ports. This colossal use of federal power devastated the American economy, spurring American manufacturing development (exactly the opposite of what Jefferson wanted) and dropping exports by 80%. It was repealed two years later by James Madison with Macon’s Bill no. 2, but reimposed later in the War of 1812. The War of 1812 - James Madison won the election of 1808. He was a Democratic Republican, having co-founded the party. - Like the Seven Years’ War and the War of Independence, the War of 1812 was a struggle not only against the British but also against Native Americans. The United States declared war on Britain in 1812 due to continued British impressment of American sailors (because of the Napoleonic Wars) and Britain’s collusion with the Northwest Territory Natives. Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, the War Hawks, called for war to uphold the principle of free trade, liberate the United States from European infringements on its independence, and annex Canada. - Democratic Republicans strongly supported the war and Federalists strongly opposed it. At the Hartford Convention in 1814, New England Federalists discussed their waning influence in national politics, called for the removal of the 3/5 clause that strengthened Southern power, and argued that New England should secede from the Union. This meeting marked the death of the Federalist Party. - Francis Scott Key witnessed the British unsuccessfully bomb Fort McHenry in 1814. This inspired him to write The Star-Spangled Banner. - Thomas Jefferson had ended the policy of paying tributes to the Barbary pirates of North Africa in exchange for protection. This caused the pirates to attack American ships, and Jefferson was forced to assemble a navy to counter. Jefferson’s administration negotiated a reduced payment to the Barbary states instead. His navy later proved useful during the War of 1812. - The Treaty of Ghent in 1814 settled the war, but General Andrew Jackson led a glorious campaign at the Battle of New Orleans a few weeks after the official peace treaty was signed. His victory convinced the people that a divine hand oversaw America’s destiny. This victory would be a major component of his future presidential campaign strategy. - The war confirmed the ability of a Democratic Republican government to conduct a war without surrendering its institutions. It also completed the conquest of the area east of the Mississippi. 17 he Era of Good Feelings T - The Era of Good Feelings emerged after the death of the Federalist Party in 1814, encapsulating a supposedly unshakable national unity under the Democratic-Republican Party. President James Monroe won the elections of 1816 and 1820, in both cases running without a major opposition. He was a Democratic Republican. - The Era of Good Feelings brought about sectionalism, loyalty to the interests of one’s own region, and nationalism, loyalty to one’s nation based on common language, culture, ethnicity, religion, and shared history. The battle between sectionalism and nationalism dominated politics and Supreme Court cases in this period. - In 1819, Missouri, a Southern territory filled with slaves, applied for statehood. James Tallmadge attached the Tallmadge Amendment to the application, declaring that Missouri should be admitted not a slave state but as a free state. This caused a Congress-splitting crisis, as the largest concern at the time was keeping the Senate balanced between slave and free states. To resolve the conflict and keep the balance, Henry Clay passed the Missouri Compromise (Compromise of 1820), admitting both Missouri (slave) and Maine (free) into the Union. - Additionally, to prevent an additional crisis later, the Compromise also asserted that the southern border of Missouri (36°30’ line) would hereafter be the line separating slave and free territory. - John Quincy Adams bought Florida and established a clear border between the United States and New Spain in the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819. - After numerous South American countries seized their independence from Spain, President Monroe proclaimed American dominance in the Western Hemisphere in the Monroe Doctrine (1823). Written by John Quincy Adams, the Doctrine asserted that American continents were closed to further European colonization, the United States would abstain from involvement in European affairs, and European powers should not interfere with the new states of Latin America. The Panic of 1819 - The Panic of 1819 was the first major recession in American history. It resulted from irresponsible small-scale and national banking practices and a decreased European demand for Southern exports. - Working men were hit hardest by the recession, and wanted to hold politicians accountable for their failures to regulate the banks, however they were unable to vote (even though the western frontier states had all established universal male suffrage). So, by 1825, most eastern states lowered or eliminated their property qualifications for voting. - The increased pool of voters caused the Democratic-Republican Party to split into two parties: ational Republicans (expansive view of federal power, loose constructionism) and Democrats N (restrictive view of federal power, strict constructionism). John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay were National Republicans (later Whigs), while Andrew Jackson was a Democrat. Old Man Eloquent - John Quincy Adams was elected president in 1824. He was a National Republican. While Andrew Jackson won the popular vote in 1824, there were too many other candidates (including 18 ohn Quincy Adams and Henry Clay) for him to win an electoral majority, so the decision went to J the House of Representatives. Henry Clay, the Speaker of the House, chose Adams, and in return, Adams made Clay his Secretary of State. Jackson called them out on this “corrupt bargain.” - Adams strongly supported Henry Clay’s American system of government-sponsored economic development. The American system followed Hamilton’s school of economics. It called for federally funded internal improvements (roads and canals that would aid farmers and merchants), implementation of protective tariffs (taxes on imported goods that would protect American manufacturers), and a Second Bank of the United States. - During his presidency, James Madison vetoed the internal improvements bill because he disliked the way it would expand federal power, but the other two provisions passed. - Adams hoped to enhance American influence in the Western Hemisphere and encourage American commerce throughout the world. He believed it was America’s destiny to conquer the entire continent of North America and spent much on internal improvements. The Age of Jackson - Andrew Jackson was elected president in 1828 and re-elected in 1832. He was a Democrat. His original support rested on his military victories in the War of 1812 and hands-on self-promotion; he did not have a specific campaign policy in the beginning. The mass democratic politics of the Age of Jackson applied the logic of market to elections; selling candidates’ images was as important as communicating their political stances. - Jackson believed that states should be the focal point of governmental activity. He opposed federal efforts to shape the economy or interfere in individuals’ private lives. Jacksonian politics revolved around issues spawned by the market revolution and the continuing tension between sectional and national loyalties. - Jackson passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830, permitting the negotiation of treaties to obtain Native American land in exchange for Native Americans’ relocation to what would become Oklahoma. The Act provided the funds for uprooting the “Five Civilized Tribes” (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole). - After Georgia attempted to forcibly resettle the Cherokee Nation, the Cherokee challenged the Act in the Supreme Court in a case called Worcester v. Georgia in 1832. In this case, the Court ruled that the Cherokee Nation was sovereign and that Georgia did not have the right to impose state laws within their boundaries. The federal government was allowed to conduct diplomacy with Native Americans; not state governments. - In 1835, the United States and a small delegation of Cherokee signed the Treaty of New chota, which exchanged Cherokee land in Georgia for a reservation territory west of the E Mississippi River. Those Cherokee who did not relocate before 1838 did so forcibly on the Trail of Tears, on which 4,000 of the 15,000 forced to migrate westward died. - Jackson developed executive authority and gave the position of president more power than it had previously contained, mainly through his trigger-happy attitude towards vetoes. For this his political enemies would often call him “King Andrew I.” 19 he Nullification Crisis T - As one of his last acts in office, John Quincy Adams passed the Tariff of 1828 (known to the South as the Tariff of Abominations), raising import duties up to 50%. It protected the industries of Northern manufacturers and Western farmers, but angered Southerners who relied on imported manufactured goods. Jackson renewed this tariff in 1832, and his vice president, John C. Calhoun, who shared the Southern hatred of it, developed the doctrine of nullification in his South Carolina Exposition and Protest. This sprouted the Nullification Crisis of 1832. Nullification, in practice, meant that individual states had the power to determine the constitutionality of federal laws and ignore them if they believed they were unconstitutional. - South Carolina decided to nullify the tariff in its Nullification Doctrine of 1833, drawing on the 1798 Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions. Even more than just nullification, if federal authorities were to collect the ignored tax, South Carolina threatened to secede from the Union. - In response, President Jackson persuaded Congress to pass the Force Act, which gave him the authority to use federal troops to enforce federal law in South Carolina. South Carolina nullified the Force Bill, but later relented after Congress passed the Compromise Tariff in 1833. he Panic of 1837 T - Jackson vetoed the renewal charter for the Second Bank of the United States in 1832, as he believed the national bank favored tycoons over common people. Without a central institution to control federal funds, he ordered that the money should be disbursed into local banks that were personally and politically friendly to him. - These pet banks were another symptom of Jackson’s spoils system, the tactic of rewarding government offices to political favorites. This system would not be removed until 1883 with the Pendleton Act, which rewarded government offices through merit and qualification rather than as political favors. - Small banks started to print increasingly large amounts of paper money, causing inflation and a 6-year long depression made worse by falling cotton prices and speculation in land, canals, and railroads. Prices rose dramatically in the unregulated economy, but wages couldn’t keep pace. - To combat the inflation of paper money, the Jackson administration issued the Specie Circular in 836, declaring that it would only accept gold and silver as payment for public land. 1 - Martin Van Buren, Jackson’s successor, approved the Independent Treasury to deal with the inherited economic crisis. The Treasury removed federal funds from the pet banks and held them solely in the Treasury Department. - In the 1840s, states amended their constitutions to prohibit their legislatures from borrowing money, issuing corporate charters. and buying stock in private enterprises. This was a success for Jacksonians: federal and state governments were separated from the economy. Democrats and Whigs - Martin Van Buren, Andrew Jackson’s vice president and later president, founded the Democratic Party. Democrats believed the government should not interfere in the economy, supported the “producing classes” of farmers and laborers, and promoted westward expansion. 20 - Andrew Jackson’s critics disparaged him as a “jackass,” but he embraced the animal, making the donkey the symbol of the Democratic Party. - Henry Clay founded the Whig Party. Whigs believed in his American System: protective tariffs, a national bank, internal improvements. They also believed that the federal government should guide the economy, and in a climbable hierarchy of social classes. Finally, Whigs thought the government should instill morality in people, a character trait required for “free” people (an Evangelical idea). - Whigs were generally Northeastern businessmen and bankers who benefited from tariffs and the stability provided by a national bank. His Accidency - William Henry Harrison was elected president in 1840. He was a Whig, the Party having used the Panic of 1837 to seize the presidency from the Democrats. He had one of the first modern campaigns; similarly to Jackson, his popularity was based more on personality than policy. Harrison’s vice president, John Tyler, was a states’ rights Democrat in whom the Whig Party hoped their collaboration with would help them win the South. - Tecumseh was a leader of the Shawnee tribe who tried to unite all Native Americans into a confederation to resist white encroachment. His beliefs and influence made him dangerous to the American government. He was killed at the Battle of the Thames by William Henry Harrison; the murder was used in Harrison’s campaign policy. - Harrison died a month after taking office and John Tyler, or, “His Accidency,” was the first vice president to assume the presidency after the president’s death. The Whig majority tried enacting the American system, but he vetoed it, displaying that political parties had become central to American government. Tyler’s single term was gridlocked and devoid of accomplishment. Without a party behind him, a president could not govern. Unit 5: 1844-1877 ntebellum Reform Movements A - Most pre-Civil War reform communities arose from religious conviction, but others were inspired by the secular desire to counteract the social and economic changes of the Market Revolution. They set out to reorganize society, restore social harmony, and mend the widening gap between rich and poor on a cooperative front in a world of excessive individualism. They abandoned the traditional family structure and private property. Typical reform movements aimed at liberating people from slavery, war, drinking, illiteracy, and criminal tendencies. They popularized perfectionism, the idea that social ills could be eliminated. Catholics were hostile to reform because they believed that it was forcing Protestant values onto them. - Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism (the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints), was believed to be a prophet and wrote the Book of Mormon in 1830 to transcribe his religious visions. Missouri passed the Mormon Extermination Order in 1838, forcing Mormons to migrate westward to Utah. 21 - Shakers believed in Christianity, hard work, pacifism, and feminism. Shakers had a strong work ethic, which promoted their commune’s longevity. - Scottish factory owner Robert Owen established New Harmony after becoming appalled with the mistreatment of industrial workers. He promoted communitarianism and ensured that workers received the full value of their labor, also advocating for public education and women’s rights. - The American Temperance Society sought to redeem habitual drunkards and occasional drinkers alike. They believed alcohol consumption was sin, arousing considerable hostility from the less religious. - Ralph Waldo Emerson, New England social essayist and public orator, was the leading figure of Transcendentalism. He wrote Self-Reliance, which promoted distrust of authority and the following of one’s own instincts. His orations severed the connection between England and American social and literary philosophy. Henry David Thoreau, a fellow Transcendentalist, opposed the Mexican War. He was jailed for refusing to pay taxes during the war and wrote Civil Disobedience, which promoted passive protest to unjust government, in his defense. - Women were instrumental to the abolitionist movement, and their newfound involvement in the public sphere made them question their own subservience to men. Advocating for female suffrage, public involvement, and autonomy, middle class feminists gathered in meetings such as the Seneca Falls Convention. Margaret Fuller was America’s first feminist. Abolition - Abolitionists rejected gradual emancipation and African colonization as solutions for slavery, instead requesting immediate liberation. They believed in true universal equality, including African Americans, in society and under the law. Some condemned slavery as sinful; others used Revolutionary rhetoric to argue for the importance of personal liberty and equal American citizenship. - Most were pacifists who wanted to use moral suasion to persuade both slaveowners and Northerners that the institution was evil. They introduced the concept (popularized by the Market Revolution) that personal freedom was not only the ownership of property but also the ownership of self. They believed birthright citizenship should apply to blacks as well. - William Lloyd Garrison published his abolitionist newspaper “The Liberator” (1831), convincing many that free blacks should be accepted as part of American society, not aliens that should be shipped overseas. The newspaper was illegal in slave states, but it was published in the North. Manifest Destiny - Journalist John L. O’Sullivan coined the phrase “Manifest Destiny” to describe America’s God-given right to take over all the land between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The average American believed in the legitimacy of aggressive western expansion. Manifest Destiny reinforced white Anglo-Saxon Protestant supremacy. The Mexican War and the subsequent annexation of Texas and California promoted white settlement and the expansion of the United States and its policies across the continent. 22 - New England Whigs adopted nativism, the policy of protecting the interests of native-born Americans (white Anglo-Saxon Protestants/WASPs) against those of immigrants. The Know-Nothings (AKA the American Party) were an aggressive faction of Whigs who were xenophobic, strongly opposed to Catholics and foreigners. Know-Nothing nativists, unsurprisingly, were strong believers in Manifest Destiny. In the North, their appeal combined anti-Catholic and anti-slavery sentiment. The Mexican War (1846-1848) - After Mexican independence, Texas was still underpopulated, so the Mexican government negotiated with the United States and gave American settlers a land grant in the area. However, this caused too many Americans to emigrate to Texas, so Mexico annulled the grant and banned further emigration into Texas. Settlers were unsatisfied with this and rebelled; Mexican dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna defeated the American defenders of the Alamo mission in 1836, but Texas settlers ultimately won independence. The Republic of Texas soon applied for statehood, however its admission as a slave state would upset the balance in the Senate, so Jackson and Van Buren ignored the request. - James Polk was elected president in 1844. He was a Democrat. While campaigning, Polk promised that he would accomplish 4 things: lower tariffs, re-establish Van Buren’s Independent Treasury, acquire the Oregon Territory from England, and, most important to his victory, annex exas. T - Congress annexed Texas days before Polk took office. - The Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, which resolved a territorial conflict between England and the U.S. over the Oregon Territory, outraged Democrats who wanted the United States to acquire all of Oregon. As president, Polk negotiated with the English government to divide the territory in the Oregon Treaty of 1846, admitting Oregon as a free state to balance the scales after Texas’s recent admission into the Union. - Polk prompted a war with Mexico in order to obtain California. Abraham Lincoln, at the time an Illinois senator, put forth his Spot Resolutions, questioning James Polk where exactly blood was spilled on American soil to prompt the Mexican War. He personally opposed the war, as he believed it was fought simply for greed for Mexican land; Mexicans called it the War of North American Invasion. Conscience Whigs also opposed the war, mainly because they were opposed to the expansion of slavery. - The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was signed in 1848 and ended the Mexican War. It confirmed the annexation of Texas and ceded California to the United States; the U.S. paid Mexico $15 million for the territory. - Zachary Taylor was elected president in 1848. He was a Whig, a strong nationalist, and a war hero from the Mexican War. - Martin Van Buren, this time running with the Free Soil Party, ran as a third-party candidate in 1848. Free Soil was based larged on opposing the expansion of slavery in the western territories and promoting the economic well-being of Northerners. - California was underpopulated until the discovery of gold in 1848; this prompted not only white Americans but also European and Chinese immigrants to participate in the Gold Rush. Henry Clay proposed the Compromise of 1850, which admitted California as a free state, outlawed slavery in Washington, D.C., enacted a new, much more aggressive and unforgiving fugitive 23 lave law, and promoted popular sovereignty (white voters in each territory choose whether s their state would be free or slave, not Congress) in the remaining western territories. After President Zachary Taylor’s death, Millard Fillmore, his successor, adopted the compromise. A House Divided Sectionalism - The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 enacted the Compromise of 1850 and formalized the idea of popular sovereignty. In practice, it repealed the Missouri Compromise, convincing Northerners that Congress was led by a sinister “slave power” group doing the bidding of rich plantation owners. The act also led to the creation of a new political party: the Republican Party, consisting of former Free-Soilers, Conscience Whigs, and some Know-Nothings. The party drew support almost exclusively from free states in the North and West. - Stephen Douglas, the head of Congress after the deaths of Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, promoted popular sovereignty in the western territories. On the contrary, Abraham Lincoln elieved that the United States needed to decide if it completely supported or opposed slavery. b Bleeding Kansas in 1856 discredited popular sovereignty, aiding Republicans. - James Buchanan was elected president in 1856. He was a Democrat. He endorsed popular sovereignty as the only viable solution to the slavery controversy. The election of 1856 demonstrated that parties had reoriented themselves along strictly sectional lines. - Stephen Douglas, having fought against Kansas’s Lecompton Constitution (which protected slavery) and Congressional laws imposing slavery on all territories, was no longer fit to represent Lower South Democrats. The Democratic Party split into North and South: the original party nominated Douglas, but Southerners placed their own man on the ballot who insisted that slavery must be protected in Western territories. - By 1856, the Republican Party became the major alternative for the Democratic Party in the North. They managed to convince most Northerners that the South’s Slave Power posed a more immediate threat to Northern liberties and aspirations than “popery” and immigration. “Free labor” glorified the North as the home of progress, opportunity, and freedom. Free labor could not compete with slave labor, so slavery’s expansion had to be halted to ensure freedom for the white laborer. - John Brown was a radical, violent abolitionist who was executed for treason after a failed armed slave insurrection on the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry. He became a martyr to the North, but the fear he caused in the South planted the seeds for a militia that would later become the Confederate Army. - The slave Dred Scott sued for his freedom after having lived in free territories, and in 1857 Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger B. Taney declared that only whites could be free U.S. citizens because black rights were not written in the Constitution. Current free blacks were susceptible to re-subjugation to slavery. Congress furthermore possessed no power under the Constitution to bar slavery from a territory. This made the Republican platform of restricting slavery’s expansion unconstitutional, and President Buchanan attempted to settle the slavery issue once and for all by declaring that the institution existed in all states by virtue of the Constitution. 24 - 1858 saw the Lincoln-Douglas debates for the Illinois senator position. The topics debated were reflective of the national issues that the United States was facing regarding slavery and western expansion with both sides battling for what they believed was better for the Union. Lincoln believed that the United States as a whole must choose whether to be free or slave, while Douglas believed in popular sovereignty (though he also supported the Dred Scott decision, a contradiction on his part). - Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860. He was a Republican. The splitting of the Democratic Party gave Lincoln the opportunity to win the election of 1860 founded solely on olicies that appealed to Northerners. His devotion to the Union appealed to moderate p Republicans, and his emphasis on the moral dimension of the slavery controversy made him acceptable to abolitionists. He was never a Know-Nothing, so he had the immigrant vote, and coming from Illinois he could win the swing states. Secession - By the late 1850s, Southern leaders were bending every effort to extend the bounds of slavery. The South attempted everything in its arsenal to promote the spread of slavery in the Western territories, while the North, attempting to limit Southern political power, increasingly promoted the opposition of slavery. - Without a single vote in 10 Southern states, Lincoln was elected. Rather than accept permanent minority status in a nation governed by their opponents, seven Southern states seceded. South Carolina and its Declaration of the Immediate Causes of Secession placed the issue of slavery at the center of the secession crisis. Lincoln did not believe war was inevitable, but he did denounce the South for starting the path to civil war. - After the Confederate States of America’s firing at Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, Lincoln called for 75,000 troops to suppress the insurrection. Within weeks of the battle, 4 more states joined the Confederacy led by Confederate President Jefferson Davis. The Civil War (1861-1865) - Most Northerners believed they were fighting to preserve the Union, and most Southerners described their cause as fighting for states’ rights to govern themselves (although slavery was the issue that had caused the argument over states’ rights to escalate to war). - While the Civil War began as a fight to preserve the Union, Radical Republicans in Congress eventually coerced Lincoln into making it a fight for emancipation as well. - Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, which stated that the government would liberate all slaves residing in Confederate states. Reconstruction (1865-1877) - Former slaves’ definition of freedom resembled that of white Americans: self-ownership, family stability, religious liberty, political participation, and economic autonomy. - Lincoln had no intention of punishing the South, wanting to focus on reunion above all else. His Ten Percent Plan dictated that 10% of Southerners must swear allegiance to the Union and 25 ccept emancipation (through the 13th Amendment). Those men would go on to reorganize a their state government and reapply for admission into the Union. Johnson - Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 15, 1865. His vice president, Southern emocrat Andrew Johnson, unsympathetic to the emancipation cause, assumed control of the D presidency and the Reconstruction effort. Johnson’s Reconstruction Plan was nearly identical to Lincoln’s, however it additionally barred many of the former southern elite from participating in government. - Yet, Johnson pardoned many of these elites, allowing for Old South legislators to take power again and the subsequent creation of black codes in the South, limiting many freedmen civil rights. - Johnson consistently vetoed bills that would assist black Americans in their assimilation into post-Civil War society. Most notably, he attempted to scrap the Civil Rights Act of 1866, a blueprint for the 14th Amendment, but his veto was overturned. - Unhappy with President Johnson’s opposition to Radical Reconstruction, Congress forced his impeachment in 1868 by catching him violating the new Tenure of Office Act. While he was acquitted by a single vote, Johnson was rendered politically impotent for the rest of his term. The Failure of Reconstruction - The 13th Amendment, issued in 1865, banned slavery in the United States. - The 14th Amendment (1868) solidified equal protection under the law, prohibited states from depriving any citizen of “life, liberty, or property without due process of law,” and assured that if you are born in the United States, you are a U.S. citizen for life. - The 15th Amendment passed in 1869, requiring states to allow black male suffrage. - The Freedmen’s Bureau promoted the federally sponsored assistance of former slaves. - The sharecropping system sponsored not only free blacks but poor whites; while reminiscent of slavery, sharecropping had farmers trade a portion of their crop yield in return for the right to farm someone else’s land. The method by which they rented land was called the crop lien system. The system quickly turned into a way for farming elites to keep poor farmers in constant near-slavery and debt. - The White League and Ku Klux Klan, paramilitary forces and secretive terrorist groups respectively, focused on attacking freedmen and their supporters. - War hero Republican Ulysses S. Grant was elected president in 1868. A number of scandals in his administration, like Crédit Mobilier and the Whiskey Ring, and the Panic of 1873 distracted the public from the crumbling Reconstruction efforts in the South. - War hero Republican Rutherford B. Hayes assumed the presidency in the infamously contested election of 1976, a reflection of the “corrupt bargain” in 1824. He won under the condition of the Compromise of 1877, which required the end of the South’s military occupation, allowing for Democrats to regain control of the South, marking the end of Reconstruction. - The Compromise gave political power to Southern Democrat Redeemers (focused on the “redemption” of traditional Southern policies and values).
